EXT3-fs error (device hda3) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted

If your system abruptly loses power, or if a RAID card is beginning to fail, you might see an ominous message like this within your logs:

EXT3-fs error (device hda3) in start_transaction: Journal has aborted

Basically, the system is telling you that it's detected a filesystem/journal mismatch, and it can't utilize the journal any longer. When this situation pops up, the filesystem gets mounted read-only almost immediately. To fix the situation, you can remount the partition as ext2 (if it isn't your active root partition), or you can commence the repair operations.

If you're working with an active root partition, you will need to boot into some rescue media and perform these operations there. If this error occurs with an additional partition besides the root partition, simply unmount the broken filesystem and proceed with these operations.

Remove the journal from the filesystem (effectively turning it into ext2):

# tune2fs -O ^has_journal /dev/hda3

Now, you will need to fsck it to correct any possible problems (throw in a -y flag to say yes to all repairs, -C for a progress bar):

# e2fsck /dev/hda3

Once that's finished, make a new journal which effectively makes the partition an ext3 filesystem again:

# tune2fs -j /dev/hda3

You should be able to mount the partition as an ext3 partition at this time:

# mount -t ext3 /dev/hda3 /mnt/fixed

Be sure to check your dmesg output for any additional errors after you're finished!

This entry was posted on 20/11/2007 (Tuesday) at 12:23 pm and is filed under Blog Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
Printed from: http://rackerhacker.com/2007/11/20/ext3-fs-error-device-hda3-in-start_transaction-journal-has-aborted/ .
© Major Hayden 2012.

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  • Welcome! I started this blog as a way to give back to all of the other system administrators who have taught me something in the past. Writing these posts brings me a lot of enjoyment and I hope you find the information useful. If you spot something that's incorrect or confusing, please write a comment and let me know. Drop me a line if there's something you want to know more about and I'll do my best to write a post on the topic.
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